Google Product Search or Google Shopping, has grown in importance as a key source of orders and revenue for e-commerce businesses.
Google product search depends on you, the merchant, to upload and manage data files that give Google details about your product. If you are using a mainstream e-commerce platform, it should be able to generate formatted feed files that you can send to Google.
In this article, we will talk about Google Merchant Center in detail.
Introduction :-
Google Merchant Center or Google Merchant Services is an online business tool that lets you provide Google with the feed of all the products you promote or sell online. This allows specific products and product information to show up during Google product searches, on Google search engine result pages with images and other Google properties like Google Shopping.
Now just setting up a Google Merchant account and providing feed to Google does not necessarily mean that your products will appear for related searches or even more specific searches. Google does not always choose to show information from Merchant accounts in its search results and when it does the results are very competitive with so many vendors feeding info to Google.
However, when Google does choose to show Merchant Center products in its search results, these products really stand out from regular text results.
Once you have the feed set in your account, you do not need to update it unless there are any changes in the products information, or there are some product additions or deletions. You can also link your Google Adwords account with your Google Merchant account. Once you have done that, you can easily tie your products from the Merchant center to specific Adwords ads quickly and effortlessly. Remarketing techniques can also be deployed to remind visitors of previously viewed products.
Setting up your Google Merchant Center Feed :-
Basically, you need to create a file, xml or txt, for your products structured to certain attributes that Google addresses.
The required attributes for each product you need are :-
ID – A unique ID specific to each product
Title – Name of the product
Link – The URL where people can find information on the product on your website
Price – Cost of the item
Description – Product description
Condition – New, Used or Refurbished
There are a slew of other attributes that may be useful for your products to get found on Google search results.
Once you have the Google Merchant Center feed prepared, then set up a Merchant Center account. After setting up the Merchant Center account, you submit the feed to Google. You can either manually upload the file, a process which needs to be repeated every 30 days or you can set up a feed schedule so that Google automatically picks up data from your website every 30 days.
It may take a few days for your products to show, but once they appear on Google Shopping and other Google searches, they tend to stay there.
Managing Google Product Feeds in Google Merchant Center :-
The Dashboard
It gives you a snapshot of your product feed. If anything goes wrong with your feed it will show up in your dashboard. Some examples of things that might go wrong include products suddenly disappearing from your Google product database or your product descriptions no longer meeting the Google quality guidelines. You should login on a regular basis to make sure your data files are working properly.
Product Feed
The heart of your Google product searches is your data feeds. Many e-commerce sites have just one feed, but you can create multiple feeds for different product lines. If you have a greater number of products, you can break the feed into multiple files. Alternatively, you can use Google’s FTP method to upload large data files.
Try uploading your feed manually initially, to make sure that Google accepts your feed before going for the automated method.
Products
The “Products” page shows how Google is listing your products and other details like impression and click count per-product. If you want your product to come up for a particular search, then that phrase should be used in the product name and description.
Data Quality
It informs of issues, if any, that Google has with your data. Google has certain quality guidelines like the length of the product name and description, invalid values for certain fields, and other guidance violations. Once you get through the initial cleanup, the subsequent upkeep is simple.
Performance Reports
Your performance reports provide the same type of information available on the dashboard, but with an added ability to view this information over different time periods.
Settings
The “Settings” page provides a myriad of setup options. Some of this include :-
Tax and Shipping
Google will estimate the tax and shipping costs for your products depending on the criteria you specify. You can get very accurate shipping rates if you specify the weight-based option and have included the product weights in your data feed.
Adwords
You should consider linking your Google Adwords account with your Google Products account. This allows Google to display additional information and images for your Adwords ads. Google will show this additional information at its own discretion.
Google checkout
If you accept Google checkout, indicate that in your Product Feed settings. Google will then show a Google checkout icon next to your Product Search listings.
Benefits of Google Merchant Center :-
Accurate Google Shopping list
Buyers searching Google for any product will see the business’s offerings in a catalog-like format, thereby increasing the visibility of the products.
Dynamic remarketing ads
Dynamic remarketing ads pull from your Google Merchant Center feed to show shoppers the products they have already viewed on your site. You can also add tailor-made messages to help shoppers recollect their memories and close more sales.
Google Analytics support
Merchants and businesses can add a Custom Segment separately for Google Merchant Center hits, thereby differentiating its data from other hits.
Online product reviews
Public reviews and star ratings are integrated into the product listings. 4.5- and 5-star products can receive better positioning.
Direct website funnel
Buyers clicking the public listings can be taken directly to the e-commerce store where the products are listed.
Local inventory ads
Local inventory ads use your store product data uploaded in the Merchant Center to show the latest pricing and availability of your products, encouraging local customers to visit your nearby offline store.
Do you utilize Google Merchant Center as a part of your Internet marketing strategy? Do you know if it has driven any traffic to your site? Has it led to many sales? We would like to hear from you.
Do you utilize Google Merchant Center as a part of your Internet marketing strategy? Do you know if it has driven any traffic to your site? Has it led to many sales? We would like to hear from you.
